World War II Online is a Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter based in Western Europe between 1939 and 1943. Through land, sea, and air combat using a ultra-realistic game engine, combined with a strategic layer, in the largest game world ever created - We offer the best WWII simulation experience around.

111 posts in this topic

Keep in mind that most of the CRS team is made up of volunteers who play the game also.

These volunteers put in hours of their own time, working feverishly to make the game better for the players.

It can become disheartening, constantly being criticised when in fact everyone wants the game to move forward and be a success.

Almost everyone i say.

This seems to always be the excuse/reason. To me, it doesn't matter if you're volunteer or not, you can still try to be professional. If you cannot, then don't comment or wait for another day. Being volunteer shouldn't give you a free pass to do whatever, regardless of the situation.

I could compare it to being part of High Command in game. They try to do their best and sometimes it doesn't work or it wasn't the right decision. Player base WILL sometimes let you hear about it, but does being snarky or talk back about it help the situation? No.

Edited January 23 by gretnine

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Oh I’m familiar. IBM is full of coasters and IGS is pretty useless too at the individual level. They can tackle monster jobs though ... at a glacial pace ... and for 8 or 9 figures. It’ll eventually get done though - late - and for another 7 or 8 figures over budget.

IBM will literally bleed companies to death if you let them, no one should be stupid enough to base their app dollars on them.

Exhibit A locally, Lomas and Nettleton, one of the five great mortgage companies at the time and usually #1 or #2- 1/3 of why they went down was sinking 8 figures in 1980s money into an IBM conversion when they had a working system for a fraction of the cost, imposing an exorbitant cash crunch without return at a time when Texas land value crashed from the Reagan oil bust.

IBM would sell them more and more hardware to make up for craptastic programming and architecture. Foolish in terms of ultimately losing their customer, but I guess the ethos is make the money while you can.

I have and continue to work closely with a lot of talented people that fled the Lomas meltdown, from the working side of their IT.

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I always had a feeling that Watson was just a bunch of marketing hype to get companies to fork over piles of cash to get an off the shelf way to analyze big data that they probably don't even need (and probably don't really even have). But I'm pretty clueless about this stuff.

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So are we just talking about the code for the windows version or for both. I know nothing about coding, wish i did so i could help you all out since im retired and you doing great work. DO you think it will possibly get done this year (with testing and rewrites for full release) or are you going to hold releasing lets say the windows version, until the mac one is completed as well. I would ask for a percentage, but i dont want you all under a lot of pressure because people on here will hold it over your head forever. But was wondering about timeline is all. Dont have to stop the other stuff that people are asking, just a good old honest 25% is done and still working. I would be happy with that. Thanks and please keep up the great work. I would buy pizza, but your all not in the same room, your loss.

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So are we just talking about the code for the windows version or for both. I know nothing about coding, wish i did so i could help you all out since im retired and you doing great work. DO you think it will possibly get done this year (with testing and rewrites for full release) or are you going to hold releasing lets say the windows version, until the mac one is completed as well. I would ask for a percentage, but i dont want you all under a lot of pressure because people on here will hold it over your head forever. But was wondering about timeline is all. Dont have to stop the other stuff that people are asking, just a good old honest 25% is done and still working. I would be happy with that. Thanks and please keep up the great work. I would buy pizza, but your all not in the same room, your loss.

I'm not going to speak for CRS, but most 64-bit porting is about fixing bad assumptions that were made at some point in time. If the porting is done *properly*, it should apply to both platforms, and future-proof against some day in the future when we move to 128-bit computing.

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Sniper and other CRS volunteers....keep on...Keeping On! Leave the Simpleton's to keep shooting their mouths off.....I happen to know that most of them are bombastic in the forums because they are lacking in the biological gonad arena!

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Sniper and other CRS volunteers....keep on...Keeping On! Leave the Simpleton's to keep shooting their mouths off.....I happen to know that most of them are bombastic in the forums because they are lacking in the biological gonad arena!

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We have several different work streams within CRS, Artists and Modelers generally aren't coders (or at least not c++ and other languages)... it makes absolutely no sense to stop work/updates on one aspect of the game while waiting on the other.

I mean we could.. no new models, .36 stopped, server/network fixes/updates/optimizations not made, no more new terrain (or fixes of) while those with the knowledge and experience work solely on the 1 item

Correct. It is a hard choice, but it makes no sense to keep building 32 bit anything when 64 bit is inevitable. The mass of what will make the switch difficult will only grow.

On 1/19/2019 at 4:26 PM, Merlin51 said:

Ok, i will stop any work on terrain, be it new or bug fixes, no gun sights, no small simple art things my poor skills can help with
and what ever other things i am able to help a tiny amount with, and i will head over to Dev and begin helping with 64bit

Yes. This is what you need to do.

On 1/19/2019 at 4:11 PM, mingus said:

There should be not one GD thing higher on the priority list than getting 64 bit going. no repaints, or reselling us more old stuff with new loadouts, ( did i mention we dont need any more repaints?) 64 bit or doomsday.

Agreed. How long did CRS spend working on the Firefly that players will rarely ever get access too. it is an all but meaningless addition to the game. How many reskins/repaints of how many different items, that makes not a wit of difference to game-play have been released in the last few years.

How long has 64 bit been on the horizon (and now in the horizon of the rear-view mirror for every other app in the universe)? At one point there was a strong indication that this could be done by Christmas (this past Christmas).... and then there was excuses. And now, what we are being sold, is that it is difficult, and possibly even unnecessary??? I do not believe it is unnecessary ... I view it as critical .... based on my experience with every other application that I have ever used that changed from 32 to 64. They are, every single one of them, better in every way.

CRS, you keep asking us to support you ... well I am not doing so in order to get a new skin for my combat knife! When I am using it i could care less what it looks like .... but I do care if the app CTD's when I try to stick it into something. Those type of fails have made a really lasting impression upon me, and I see a technology upgrade as a significant step toward solving many of the problems currently seen in the game. Currently. I mean for the last ten years now.

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again - everyone needs to realize that the guys doing art CANT help with 6bit as they (correct me if im wrong @Merlin51) don't know how to code.

understanding w/e is used for the terrain editor, working with creator to build new vehicles, has NOTHING to do with writing code. completely different skill set. meaning, new vehicles, new towns, isn't slowing down 64bit work one bit. if they stop working on new models and expanding the map, nothing changes with 64bit work and all that happens is we dont get more vehicles nor does the map expand.

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Art/Artists, create content that can be placed into the game. Create new models and the skin/texture/paintjob for them.

We have model artists that create the models, the framework or Skelton for a object and we have graphics artists that then create the textures to go with the model. These folks do not write code, models don't realy have anything to do with 32bit or 64bit.

Merlin does the terrain work, adding new towns and objects... Fixing misplaced objects. Very tedious job with a lot of time involved. But not coding.

QA, tests all fixes and features to see if what got broken is fixed, if something else got broke. We also try to replicate a found bug and then document in text and video when possible exactly how to replicate so the coder can then follow those steps using a debug/logging version of the game and see what the code is doing when the bug occurs.

Coders write/rewrite/replace the code/instructions that causes that content to function within the game as well as correct code that is causing a bug or otherwise causing issues within the game. They don't create models, don't create textures, don't test fixes.

32bit vrs 64bit..... Most basic terms, 32-bit and 64-bit refer to the way a computer's processor (also called a CPU), handles information. The 64-bit version of Windows handles large amounts of random access memory (RAM) more effectively than a 32-bit system.

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Correct. It is a hard choice, but it makes no sense to keep building 32 bit anything when 64 bit is inevitable. The mass of what will make the switch difficult will only grow.

Yes. This is what you need to do.

Agreed. How long did CRS spend working on the Firefly that players will rarely ever get access too. it is an all but meaningless addition to the game. How many reskins/repaints of how many different items, that makes not a wit of difference to game-play have been released in the last few years.

How long has 64 bit been on the horizon (and now in the horizon of the rear-view mirror for every other app in the universe)? At one point there was a strong indication that this could be done by Christmas (this past Christmas).... and then there was excuses. And now, what we are being sold, is that it is difficult, and possibly even unnecessary??? I do not believe it is unnecessary ... I view it as critical .... based on my experience with every other application that I have ever used that changed from 32 to 64. They are, every single one of them, better in every way.

CRS, you keep asking us to support you ... well I am not doing so in order to get a new skin for my combat knife! When I am using it i could care less what it looks like .... but I do care if the app CTD's when I try to stick it into something. Those type of fails have made a really lasting impression upon me, and I see a technology upgrade as a significant step toward solving many of the problems currently seen in the game. Currently. I mean for the last ten years now.

Thanks for starting this thread again mingus.

<S>

Not long on firefly as it was an existing gun and chassis so that is a poor example imho.....there are lots of to do lists that are worked in parallel to each other. New platform work/art does not stop or wait on anything else. As for 64 bit status xoom is the guy you need to ask. I keep to my little modeling and ballistics lane...

In that regard though I'm trying to get a build environment up on my alternate machine so I can go ahead and begin coding (the new armor protection model and new penetration mechanics (to include FHA for the germans finally)) and debugging, but none of that has anything to do with 64 bit port per say. Other guys doing that.

As a guy with a comp sci degree I agree that moving to 64 bit can fix -some- ills of the current client...more memory can fix many things...so it needs to be done.

I would like to remind you (as I frequently remind Xoom!) that we are stuck with the ills and sins of the past. As a long time player I found the lack of progress hard to stomach over the years (before I volunteered and got stuck in) The team has gone from literally being able to do little/nothing to expansion in a great number of things from a standing start. Things will continue to pick up speed on content...at least for vehicular platforms to include naval...but there is no doubt 64 bit needs to happen.

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again - everyone needs to realize that the guys doing art CANT help with 6bit as they (correct me if im wrong @Merlin51) don't know how to code.

merlin definitely does not know how to code in any useful semblance
the last time i even wrote any code was like 1980 and i think it was in basica or gwbasic
and i have slept once or twice since then

Even if i wanted to help work on code, i would be the first guy they would have to throw out of the room
without stopping to open the door.

EDIT:
One thing to remember.
Being good at writing code is one thing, our code people are good at it, you might be surprised who they work for in their day lives.
But you can only rewrite something properly, once you understand what the heck it is and what is it trying to do and how is it trying to do it.
No instruction manual came with this, everyone has had to learn how everything works in relation to this game from scratch.
From the people making models, because the game expects very exact specific construction and data and organization in the models
to even terrain, and especially the code which interprets everything and makes the magic happen.

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Updating to 64-bit isn't going to solve too many issues in this game. The basic improvements would be:

Allow the game thread to access more RAM.

Allow for more precision in calculations in areas such as physics and object placement in the world.

These things are important for the future of the game, but they aren't going to 'fix' many of the issues folks complain about.

I generally agree, however, there are some areas that it may in fact fix.

1) we can seriously consider doubling the visibility range from 6KM to 12KM. not a big deal for ground units but a giant deal for planes and navy. true distance to the horizon at sea level is ~7miles, from a CON tower on a DD likely double that. 6KM = ~3miles so with our current limitation we're already in bad weather conditions for boats and just barely VFR conditions for planes.

2) expanding the visual limits for total tracked objects in the area. here the ground battles could be larger than we've ever seen. we likely lack the population atm but as we grow the battles can get larger than at any point in the past.

number 1 is huge for the airwar as it will open up a lot of options for improved "other than CAS" gameplay which at present is next to impossible.

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1) we can seriously consider doubling the visibility range from 6KM to 12KM. not a big deal for ground units but a giant deal for planes and navy. true distance to the horizon at sea level is ~7miles, from a CON tower on a DD likely double that. 6KM = ~3miles so with our current limitation we're already in bad weather conditions for boats and just barely VFR conditions for planes.

2) expanding the visual limits for total tracked objects in the area. here the ground battles could be larger than we've ever seen. we likely lack the population atm but as we grow the battles can get larger than at any point in the past.

the GPU isn't taxed much at all. Running Rivatuner, at 4K resolution all 'pretty settings enabled', I get barely 20% GPU utilization. GPU ram is also barely utilized. One of my i7 cores (@4.8ghz) is maxed out and with vsync disabled I get around 200fps max, around 60fps in battles. the game is 100% CPU bound. for comparison, Rocketleague at 4K with medium high settings is maxing out the GPU utilization at around 95% with a rock stable 60fps. *edit* this is with a stock GTX1060 6GB clocks at 1750mhz for core and ... 4GHZ for RAM clock?

Further, in this context, view distance doesn't really tax all that much as all 'demanding' features are culled at ... 4km? buildings aren't drawn, trees are bill-boarded, nothing all that taxing is drawn past i think 4 or 5KM. for the ground players then, very little changes. for the air though, we may be able to extend circles somehow to simulate the eye's ability to more easily see things at altitude. I fly a lot IRL, sitting in window seats I routinely see smaller planes significantly further away then the game's ~3mile limitations and even significantly further than a doubling of the games limitation would allow.

it won't change much and modern mid range hardware can easily handle the additional distance.

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What @madrebelsaid. With 64-bit you can address things to greater precision which I would assume would be a great improvement for munitions calculations. And for the air game this would be huge since right now you are stuck to flying low over town since you can't see planes farthur out than maybe 1 km.

As far as performance I tested this and WWIIOL uses ~1.5 GBof system RAM and 1 GB of video memory. I for example have a GTX 1070ti which is a more high-end card, along with 16 GB of system RAM and a core i5 Intel CPU which I would put in the low end of an enthusiast/performance build and I run this game at 1440p resolution, every setting maxed out, and I have 4x AA turned and I get 250-300 FPS tooling around and 120 FPS in big battles. I could easily run this game at 4K with this setup and get better performance than the current 60 FPS standard.

WWIIOL simply doesn't utilize all this computing power since it was written when the top of the line CPU was 500 MHz and a performance PC had 256 MB of RAM. If you were lucky and had the I rest nvidia GeForce cards in 2001 like I did you had 32 MB of video memory (I have 6 GB now).

With 64 bit and access to multicore CPUs you could do a ton since the standard now is pretty much 4 cores and going to 6 or 8 cores (every midrange Intel CPU since 2011 has 4 cores and in 2017 this jumped to 6 cores). Even all low-end/budget Intel CPUs have 4 cores as of 2017. That is quadruple the processing power that right now is sitting unused by most players. Imagine what you could do with ballistics or unit tracking by putting all those cores to use. It would make a huge difference.